Birth as a mental challenge rather than a physical one.

We recently had an interesting discussion on the Hypnobabies Yahoo Group about Birth being more of a mental challenge than a physical one.

Here are a few quotes. Please add your comments

“Now, after studying Hypnobabies and reading up on birth, I see birth so much more as a mental challenge rather than a physical one.

Anyone experience the same?

I mean, I now approach my birthing time with one aim: to relax so that I allow my body to do its job. I have chosen to use my hypnosis, I trust that my tools will help me. And chosing and using is all in my head.

Last time when I gave birth, I was thinking of birth as a physical challenge. I had read up on positions, and I wanted to try to see if I could manage doing it naturally. I guess I thought that either my body could or couldn’t do it – I would just have to give it a try.

Now I know I can!”

Elin

“After my second birth (first Hypnobabies birth), I had a brief moment of thinking, “That’s IT?!? All that fuss and months of preparation for that?! I could do that everyday and twice on Sundays!” It was then that I realized that rather than “muscling through” my birth, as most women do (especially NCB mamas) I had actually spread the effort involved over several months by preparing so thoroughly. That put my accomplishment in perspective, and made me even more thrilled with how it had gone!”

-Susan

“Mental vs. physical challenge is something I’ve considered when training for a marathon. There is an enormous amount of power we carry in our thoughts alone. At any moment I could have told myself to stop running, it’s not worth it, why am I running? But instead I had positive messages from every angle (it will be worth it, my husband will be proud, only 2 more miles and I’ve done 2 miles many times, and so on).

Albeit this new adventure is unknown and there are the inevitable fears that arise from the unknown, but my baby alone make it worth the mental challenge.”

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[…] instead of fear? I think the first place we have to start is their thoughts. Because birth is as much a mental experience as it is a physical experience and what we believe will have an effect on what we […]